A Stanford University engineering team has built a radio the size of an ant that requires no batteries. The device gathers all the power it needs from the same electromagnetic waves that carry signals to its receiving antenna. Designed to compute, execute, and relay commands, the tiny wireless chip costs pennies to manufacture, making it cheap enough, they say, to become the missing link between the Internet and the connected smart gadgets envisioned in the “Internet of Things.”
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A team of scientists in a collaboration between the Cambridge Graphene Centre at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Plastic Logic Ltd., also in Cambridge, have created a prototype of a flexible display incorporating graphene in its pixels’ electronics, marking the first time that graphene has been used in a transistor-based flexible device.
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New research has confirmed that a technique developed previously at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Gaithersburg, MD, can enable optical microscopes to measure the 3D shape of objects at nanometer-scale resolution—far below the normal resolution limit for optical microscopy. The results could make the technique a useful quality control tool in the manufacture of nanoscale devices such as next-generation microchips.
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Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have designed integrated circuits that can survive at temperatures greater than 350 degrees Celsius — or roughly 660 degrees Fahrenheit. Their work, funded by the National Science Foundation, will improve the functioning of processors, drivers, controllers and other analog and digital circuits used in power electronics, automobiles and aerospace equipment, all of which must perform at high and often extreme temperatures.
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Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego are asking what might be possible if semiconductor materials were flexible and stretchable without sacrificing electronic function?
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In the not too distant "Internet of Things" reality, sensors could be embedded in everyday objects to help monitor and track everything from the safety of bridges to the health of your heart. But what’s holding this new reality back is having a way to inexpensively power and connect these devices to the Internet, say engineers at the University of Washington, Seattle.
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Posted in News, Batteries, Electronic Components, Electronics, Power Management, Power Supplies on
Tuesday, 05 August 2014

The race is on to design smaller, cheaper, and more efficient rechargeable batteries to meet power storage needs. Now, a team of researchers at Stanford University report that they have taken a big step toward designing a pure lithium anode, which, they say, would greatly advance current lithium ion batteries.
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Question of the Week

This week's Question: A recent study created by the Arizona-based Paragon Space Development Corporation says its life support system could help humans survive on Mars. The proposed Environmental Control and Life Support System, the company says,...